Slashdot Mirror
Facebook Takes On FourSquare
An anonymous reader writes "Facebook Places is similar to FourSquare. You can go to places, 'check-in' so your friends know you're there, rate them, comment on them, and generally spew your opinions all over the internet as fast as your fingers can hit the keys. It's an obvious attempt by the company to muscle in on FourSquare's block, casting its influence ever further over us all." Now the question is, who at FourSquare turned down the offer, and how badly are they crapping their pants?
@Facebook has just ousted @Foursquare as the mayor of useless crap.
You cared enough to comment on it apparently.
I know what people do with it, but why do they do it?
The same could be said of that post you just posted. I know what you do on Slashdot but why do you do it?
And I think the answer is very simple: communication with a nominal reward. People love debate and communication and giving advice and the like. Just because FourSquare focuses on restaurants and eateries doesn't make it any less pointless than our banter and talk of tech here on Slashdot. It simply has a different target market. It might be bigger, it might be smaller but it's something evidently.
"I'm Mayor of the 1st St. Chipotle" vs "I just got a +5 Insightful on this post!" Simple meaningless reward that means something to the user.
Think of it like a game. Personally I think it's worthless but I wouldn't consider myself very keen on the internet if I didn't realize what it does effectively and how it appeals to the users. Of course that means eyeballs and of course Facebook wants their users to lock in and stay. Maybe they'll make a native FourSquare to Facebook to appeal to that market?
My work here is dung.
I listen to bands so obscure they haven't been formed yet.
Someone should totally open up a bar for programmers. Just call it the Progress Bar.
That's more like a bar for the IT workers that install software on corporate computers all day.
All the cool programmers drink at the Foo Bar